Grid in Device-Window and reorder Groups, Diamond Dome issue

[pcpanik]

Hello tou you, I'm Patrick from Germany and a new user of Daslight 4 with the DVC 4 Gold interface. Before that I used an analog control panel from thomann (Stairville DMX Master FX 3). But my environment has grown a lot, so I now want to control 32 fixtures.

I'm a bignner with the software. I patched all my fixtrues and tried to position all the squares to build my environment in the device-window, in the right bottom of the main window.

1st Q:
Is there a grid that I can turn on, that would fixate the squares of the fixtures? This would make positioning much easier.

2nd Q:
I also set up many groups there. Of course not thought about in what sensible order. And now I'm wondering that I can't reorder them.
What am I doing wrong? You can sort the groups again, right? Deleting everything again and putting it back in the preferred order would be a lot of work.

And by the way: is there a way to edit the names in the bottom tab-menue? The names of my fixtures are way to long and even if I renamed them all in the patch-module, the names shown in bottom are the old long ones.

And my 3rd Q:
I use fun genearation Diamond Domes RGBAUV. In the 3D Easy View 2 Beta, which crashes very very often, these devices are shown solid white. So they always light up, even when they are switched off. They do not have a dimmer channel, only a color wheel type. The light is switched on with the first channel from value 5. Even switched on to a colour, they are still lit white.
Can I somehow teach the Easy Viewer 2 that they should not light up when off, and sho the right color? There is obviously no real counterpart of a 3D model, so it is displayed as a PAR. I have already changed the profile to wash and wide angle with 200 Lux brightness. But it would be nice if the devices are off in the 3D view when they are off. And shine in the right color, when they're on. Is that possible?

Thank you in advance. I really hope I'll get this to work. There is a 2h gig on Sat., 18th.... so I have a lot to do the next days.

[PolDavril]

Hello,

I'm trying to answer your questions.

1) There is no grid in the 2D view. Each square may be moved freely. However, you can select a group of fixtures and click the option for automatic positionning (square, circle, horizontal line, vertical line and advanced). There are also 2 buttons to rotate the group by 45°.
You can give more space between the fixtures : select the lower right dot of the grid around the group to have the resizing tool (2 arrows) and drag the mouse.

2) You can create groups : select the fixtures in the right logical order, one by one with the Ctrl key or with the selection rectangle. Click "+" to add a group. A number appears. You can give a name to the group with a right-click (enlarge the group column to see the name).
If you choose to align the fixtures of the group (like topic #1), the fixtures are automatically reordered by their logical position in the group. Right-click on the group button and select "Update" to keep the changes in the group.

It's not possible to change the name in the bottom tabs. However, you can change the name of each individual fixture in the patch (right-click and choose Rename).

3) It seems that the ssl file of your fixtures is not correct for the first preset (the blackout for values DMX 0-9). I've made a correction in the attached file. It's now fixed for the 2D view. Note that the 3-colours presets cannot be seen beacuse the ssl editor works with single colour and 2-colours only.
EasyView2 does not display the colours correctly for this type of fixture. It's a bug or a limitation. EasyView 2 is still a beta version 0.9 since the beginning of Daslight 4, unfortunately. In my point of view, the current EasyView2 is not a stable version yet. I'm afraid the standard 2D view is the best for now.

Hope this helps.

[PolDavril]

EDIT : to have a different name in the bottom tab, change the name of the ssl file before patching it.

Try this new file for Diamond Dome (for fixture name & multi colour presets).

Hope this helps.

[pcpanik]

Thank for your your friendly reply. Yeah, the idea with renaming the files is a nice workaround.
I‘ll try the new SSL file, thank you for the work and time you‘ve invested.

But I also have to say, that I‘m overall not too happy with the software. No copy/paste of setting to the same kind of fixtures. No timeline. And the crashes of the sofware, especially of the 3D viewer.
Please don't be angry with me if I have to say that the whole package reminds me of a beta status. Good approaches, but somehow not very user-friendly designed.
The very dark design can also not be read on presidential laptop monitors, depending on the angle. The control elements, in particular above, are in some cases simply no longer separable.
That the 3D viewer is still in a 0.9 version after 4 years of development is also somewhat bitter. The hardware in the plastic housing is not of high quality either. Why was a DMX plug and a socket installed instead of two sockets?

I apologize if that sounds pretty negative now. Daslights system will have its strengths.
Nevertheless, I will now also look at the alternative DMX Joker Pro along with hardware in comparison and then decide which system suits me better. There is also a 3D viewer, a timeline, profile editor, window server for iOS with app, ART-Net support, MIDI support etc.

I thank you again for the quick response and help.

[PolDavril]

Hello Pcpanik,

You're welcome.
You are right : Daslight4 has some missing features, as you explain here.
I'm sure that the developpers will read this topic and they will add these suggestions for the next version.

If you have any further questions, I will be happy to help you again.

Kind regards.

[pcpanik]

Thank you Pol.

Now that I've spent the entire afternoon and evening with DMX Joker Pro and it hasn't crashed once, not even the 3D viewer, I can read the displays better, and it also masters all functions that I miss in Daslight4, my decision is made, to return the DVC4 Gold package and continue working with the Stairville DMX Joker Pro 1024. Especially since the interface has a metal housing, can be screwed tight, brings an IR control for emergencies for standalone operation and everything is also significantly cheaper. Time is short until Saturday and I can no longer engage in experiments with beta software.

I would like to thank you again for the friendly help and wish you all the best.

[PolDavril]

Hello Pcpanik,

Have a big fun, I hope everything will be OK with your choice.